


no one can hear you scream in space

by buffering



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Complete, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mass Effect 2, Normandy crash site, Shepard's been through a lot okay, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24141949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffering/pseuds/buffering
Summary: The sky was beautiful for such an ugly surface, marred and scarred with the remains of the original Normandy. Ribbons of green and pink light swirled across the starry expanse, and for a moment Arya could pretend the dark towering shapes around her were mountains and cliffs and not the pieces of wreckage.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	no one can hear you scream in space

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :D I'm currently playing through the ME trilogy and I've just gotten through the part where Shepard goes to the crash site of the Normandy...I've got some feelings about that part. 
> 
> For this, Shepard's first name is Arya and is the sole survivor of Akuze, more Paragon than Aggro. Other than that, the rest of her history isn't really that important - you can fill in the blanks with your own. Also, all names mentioned are the actual names from the game (except Arya, of course).
> 
> Any mistakes are mine. Please enjoy, and let me know what you think?

* * *

The sky was beautiful for such an ugly surface, marred and scarred with the remains of the original  _ Normandy _ . Ribbons of green and pink light swirled across the starry expanse, and for a moment Arya could pretend the dark towering shapes around her were mountains and cliffs and not the pieces of wreckage. 

Garrus had offered to go down with her, but she’d (politely) turned him down. This was something she needed to do on her own, although she appreciated the sentiment. Arya had quietly told Joker the coordinates transmitted to her from the Admiral and slipped into a shuttle on her own when Alchera’s surface was in sight. As much as she hated the silence, the deafening quiet of the icy planet, she needed to see. What was left, wreckage and bodies and dog tags.

Arya swallowed bile as she bent down, fingers tracing the letters sticking out on the shiny dog tag:  **ROSAMUND DRAVEN** . Mouth nothing more than a harsh line, she stood up, tightly clutching the last remnants of Rosamund. Numbly, Arya wondered if the families blamed her, if they hated her as much as she hated herself for living. It was all over the news that Arya Shepard, sole survivor of Akuze and hero of the citadel, was alive and well; the families must’ve heard. Did they despise her, wondering why  _ she _ was the one to survive when their child or parent was dead? 

**MARCUS GRIECO. HELEN M. LOWE. RAYMOND TANAKA. JAMIN BAKARI. SILAS CROSBY. HECTER EMERSON. ALEXEI DUBYANSKY. ROBERT FELAWA. MONICA NEGULESCO. AMINE WAABERI. CARLTON TUCKS. ADDISON CHASE. MANDIRA RAHMAN.**

The dog tags were heavy as she clenched them in a fist. There were more around here, of course. She’d been told there were roughly 20 members still unaccounted for, but Arya could only assume there were more. She’d repeat the names in her mind, lips mouthing along, as she found each one, to imprint them on her mind. Or brand them, really. Keep the memory of their names trapped in a little cage so she’d never forget them. Their sacrifice, her stupidity. 

Because really, this was  _ her  _ fault, wasn’t it? If only she’d reacted quicker, if only she’d pushed the Council more, if only she’d run faster as the Normandy started it’s slow descent to the planet’s surface, if only she’d…

_ No. Concentrate on the other dog tags. You are not allowed to break down with crewmen still missing.  _

Arya swallowed. Right. Her crew. 

**GERMEEN BARRETT. HARVEY J. GLADSTONE. CAROLINE GRENADO. ABISHEK PAKTI. ORDEN LAFLAMME.**

Salt stung at her eyes as she found Pressly’s datapad, only comprehensible by filling in the errors.  **CHARLES PRESSLY** ran under her thumb as she knelt down. They had gotten along, more or less, although Arya had been open with her distaste of his strong ‘dislike’ of aliens, but they had worked together very well. And to imagine him, his last moments of falling or burning or suffocating, to imagine  _ all _ of their last moments like that

“Get it together, Shepard,” she muttered to herself. A breath, then two, passed. She had at least one more tag to find. 

She placed the golden monument in front of the Mako, gleaming dully in the dancing lights of the starry sky. Perhaps it would’ve been more fitting to put it in front of the  _ Normandy _ ’s hull, where the ship’s name was sliced in half, but the Mako represented survival. Durability. Strength. The amount of times she should’ve died in that thing was immeasurable. Someone had to remember that, commemorate that. 

Something glinted in the corner of her eye, silvery gleam brighter than the other crashed metals around her. Arya didn’t know how she’d missed this tag, having walked this way numerous times, but she also wasn’t the most present right now; half of her was still suffocating above the planet two years ago, lungs burning with nothingness and black dots eating away at her eyes. 

**TALITHA DRAVEN.** Wait, hadn’t there been…

Arya went through the tags, repeating each name again. And-there.  **ROSAMUND DRAVEN.** It could’ve been a coincidence, but those didn’t exist, not really. Family. Sisters, cousins, lovers...whatever their relation, both were dead. She’d gotten two relatives killed on the same day, and all she could show for it were their tags. 

Dimly she could feel her chest tightening in that all-too familiar way, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Something bubbled within her, thick and raw an d hot. The commander barely felt as her knees slammed into the icy ground, fists gripping dog tags so tightly they should’ve sliced her hands open. Something piercing crawled out from her chest, up her throat. 

She broke.

  
  
  


Later, when she went back to the new  _ Normandy _ , no one questioned her dead eyes, blank and empty as a sharks. No one mentioned her shaking hands, the way her breath hitched sometimes, her clenched teeth, how she seemed like a shattered vase held together with glue. When their commander spoke, no one noticed how hoarse her voice was, how it almost sounded painful to speak. 

Arya told herself she was fine, that everything was under control.

She never was a good liar. 


End file.
